I bestow upon myself the Susie Homemaker Award for the Day. Determine to ignore that I was sick, I tried three new recipes - the split pea soup was fab with the homegrown bacon strips flavoring it; the no work bread was restaurant quality; and last night I made my first turkey sausage and bell pepper calzone - a Cooking Light Recipe. I also finished a DYI project creating a home charging station for our many phones from an elegant sushi plate box set I have never used. Really! I drilled holes in the back of the box and the phones fit beautifully on each of the plates. No kidding. THEN since the station was red and in my mudroom, I looked around at the incredibly faded and stained ironing board cover and decided to sew a beautiful new red one. I tossed the similarly discolored valance i had sewn and made a new one out of two beautiful, unused rooster dish towels from Williams and Sonoma I had been saving.

Wow! There are several ways to look at this burst of energy. As Beck urges, I found creative energy in non food interests. I was not hungry all day and was completely OP. Or you could surmise I am embracing Frugal January and using up what I have. You could also say I hate being sick and refuse to go down without a fight. Who knows.

The result is a OP day under my belt, a beautiful new room and a trip to the Doctor for antibiotics because I was noticeably worse last night. That is the good, the bad and the ugly of being little old human me.

bethfromdayton: What a powerful post about your party weekend. It takes a lot of courage to take responsibility for what is going in your mouth and then accepting the reality of 5,000 calories. I am guessing there are few of us on this blog that have not eaten the same amount repeatedly over our lives. How did I get to be over 200 pounds? Like Beck says, it was not "magic." Numbers don't lie. My best hope is for us to be kinder to ourselves. Credit for new resolve and back on track. This is a long race.

Welcome Aztricia.

nationalparker: Good Luck with that cold weather. I thought of you Eastern/Northerners in the 49ners/Green Bay game. Miserable. Don't worry about the cruise. There are lots of solutions for you when the time comes. Focus on today's healthy eating and it will all be fine. (I say to both you and me at the same time.)